Texas Watch: U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett faces a fight for survival after setbacks

WASHINGTON — It’s been a rough few months for U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett.

He butted heads with the governor over education funds, and lost.

The Legislature put him on the endangered species list by carving up his district, encouraging a popular state lawmaker to take him on in the Democratic primary.

And last week, to top it off, the White House threw him under a bus when U.S. attorney nominations were announced.

On the bright side, Doggett, an Austin Democrat elected to Congress in 1994, has a hefty $2.9 million war chest to help defend his job.

“He’s going to need every dime of it,” said Harold Cook, a Democratic strategist in Austin.

It’s unclear how the setbacks will affect Doggett’s primary fight with state Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, whose twin brother, Julián Castro, happens to be that city’s mayor.

This early, Castro would only allude to his rival’s travails.

“In a politically hostile environment,” he said by phone Friday, it’s important to learn how to operate. That’s what he’s managed to do in the state House since 2003, he said. “You can hurt yourself by alienating others so that you cripple your effectiveness.”

Doggett declined an interview request Friday. An aide said he couldn’t find time to talk on short notice.

Deal ‘disregarded’

The U.S. attorney fight was the most recent blow.

Doggett, as senior Texas Democrat in the U.S. House, had led the Democratic delegation’s effort to influence the selection of federal judges and prosecutors since Barack Obama took over from George W. Bush.

The Democrats insisted that the White House turn to them — rather than to Republican senators — for suggestions. The senators fought back, noting that only the Senate votes on nominees, and that only they could block a confirmation vote.

In March 2009, Doggett announced that he and his colleagues had secured a promise from then-White House counsel Greg Craig: “No federal judge, U.S. attorney or U.S. marshal will be nominated … unless that person has the confirmed support of the Texas Democratic delegation.”

That’s not what happened last week. After a 21/2 year delay that pleased no one, Obama nominated four career prosecutors. None appeared on lists submitted by Doggett.

It was a big-time snub.

Doggett grumbled that the administration “disregarded its previous agreement.”

Republicans, pleased, said he’d overplayed his hand.

Doggett Amendment

It was hardly the only high-profile defeat in recent months.

Last summer, Doggett slipped a provision into a $10 billion jobs package, to block Texas from collecting $830 million in school funds without a promise to hold education outlays steady for three years.

Gov. Rick Perry refused. He railed against the Doggett Amendment, calling it a “cheap political stunt.” Doggett argued that without the restriction, Perry would use the funds to paper over state budget problems and make himself look better, as he’d done with $3.2 billion in previous emergency school aid.

In April, Congress undid Doggett’s handiwork. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, said the “senseless war on Texas schoolchildren” had ended.

How the episode will play in the Doggett-Castro primary is unclear.

“I would imagine that Doggett would use it, and characterize it as standing up for education against Rick Perry. That’s a pretty good slogan,” Cook said. “If the outcome doesn’t fit your narrative, you just don’t put the outcome in your ads.”

Another new map

Then there’s the map.

Eight years ago, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay got the Legislature to slice and dice Texas into new districts that would force out seven white Democrats. Doggett was left with a narrow strip that ran hundreds of miles to the Rio Grande from his base in Austin.

He was the only target to survive. Last month, the GOP-run Legislature carved up Travis County again. His new district is dominated by Hispanics and Bexar County. Both demographics heavily favor Castro.

“We have seen in the past that redistricting is devastatingly effective. Doggett is the only one they swung at and missed,” Cook said. “Now they’re coming for him again.”

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About Todd J. Gillman

Career track: I started writing for my junior high school newspaper, the Redcoat. In high school, I freelanced a bit for the local weekly,wrote for the school paper and worked on a weekly public access TV news show that was long on enthusiasm and short on production values. During college at Johns Hopkins University, I interned for The Associated Press and later, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. I started at The Dallas Morning News as an intern after graduating from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government with a master's in public policy, got hired on the Texas & Southwest desk and spent the next several years covering plane crashes, hurricanes and state politics. After a few years as a general assignments reporter on the Metropolitan desk, I moved to the City Hall
beat and later, became the local political writer and columnist. I moved
to the Washington bureau after nearly two years as a Dallas-based national
correspondent.

Most unforgettable experience on the job: Talking my way into Ground
Zero on a rainy day a week or so after Sept. 11, and absorbing the enormity
of it all. My dad used to commute through the Trade Center. A close second
would be my first hurricane, when I was still an intern: driving across
the bridge to Galveston in gales strong enough to push my rental car into
the next lane and tear off the rear license plate, which I keep as a souvenir.

Something people don't know about me: I've been having Tex-Mex withdrawal
ever since moving to Washington.

If I had two spare hours, I would: Go hiking with my wife and kids.

How I define a true Texan: The three natives running around my house
yelling for "mama."

Hometown: Livingston, N.J.

Education: Johns Hopkins University, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government